{"id":186029,"date":"2025-10-02T21:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T21:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/186029\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T21:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T21:57:07","slug":"report-manny-pacquiao-in-talks-to-face-wba-welterweight-champ-in-targeted-january-boxing-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/186029\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Manny Pacquiao in talks to face WBA welterweight champ in targeted January boxing return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>46-year-old Manny Pacquiao will get a second crack at earning another world championship belt since returning to professional boxing.<\/p>\n<p>Manny Pacquiao proved that age might be merely a number when he went to a majority draw against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/boxing-news\/manny-pacquiao\/report-manny-pacquiao-booked-for-fall-return-against-wbc-champion-mario-barrios\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WBC titleholder Mario Barrios in July<\/a>. In a fight that many spectators scored in Pacquiao\u2019s favor, the boxing legend looked in supreme condition as he nearly won another championship title.<\/p>\n<p>Pacquiao has remained busy out of the boxing ring since his comeback fight against Barrios. He\u2019s set to launch his own promotion next month, featuring his oldest son on the inaugural card, and remains active in the gym.<\/p>\n<p>Just months after his fight against Barrios, Pacquiao is out to prove that his latest comeback attempt isn\u2019t a one-off endeavor.<\/p>\n<p>Manny Pacquiao eyes Rolando Romero for January 2026 showdown<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/46468530\/rolando-romero-perfect-foe-manny-pacquiao-adviser-says\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">ESPN\u2019s Andreas Hale<\/a>, Pacquiao\u2019s team is eying a showdown with WBA welterweight champion Rolando \u2018Rolly\u2019 Romero in January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would have loved to fight again before the end of the year, but the timing didn\u2019t work out,\u201d Pacquiao\u2019s longtime adviser, Sean Gibbons said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c2026 will be a new year with new beginnings and hopefully a new opponent. I think the perfect time for Manny to make a statement to come back is January, and I think the perfect opponent is Rolly Romero.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gibbons went on to clarify that Pacquiao is in active negotiations to return to the ring in January against a to-be-determined opponent. Romero is at the top of the boxing legend\u2019s wish list of possible opponents.<\/p>\n<p>Romero\u2019s stock skyrocketed after he defeated Ryan Garcia earlier this year in New York City. Romero earned the then-vacant WBA welterweight title over Garcia after outpointing Manuel Jaimes in September 2024.<\/p>\n<p>As of this writing, Romero and his team haven\u2019t addressed speculation of a potential matchup with Pacquiao.<\/p>\n<p>Pacquiao is regarded by many as one of the greatest boxers of all time, with wins against the likes of Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, and Juan Manuel Marquez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"46-year-old Manny Pacquiao will get a second crack at earning another world championship belt since returning to professional&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,2795,26699,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-186029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-manny-pacquiao","12":"tag-rolando-romero","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}